How to Start a Mail Order Pharmacy

Mail order pharmacies have become private, secure doctor's offices. Able to dispense medications traditionally reserved for a face to face meeting with a doctor, the mail order pharmacy delivers previously written prescriptions right to the door. Additionally, they vary in options ranging from sending in a prescription via fax or mail to receive medications to actually filling out a simple questionnaire enabling a doctor to write and send a prescription to a local pharmacy to be sent directly to the consumer, usually overnight. When starting an online pharmacy, the decision to open an independent shop rather than becoming an affiliate is the biggest decision to be made.

Things You'll Need

• Domain
• Doctor
• FDA guidelines
• Courier
• Pharmacies who will cooperate with you
• or
• Affiliate status

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Instructions

On Your Own or as an Affiliate?

• 1

  Decide whether you wish to be an affiliate of an already functioning online pharmacy. This offers many advantages in that for only a domain will be needed and possibly even only use of a template rather than building an actual website. The call centers, the dispatch, the affiliated pharmacies and doctors as well as legal drugs only will be the responsibility of the site to ensure. The affiliate simply sits back and gets a commission.

• 2

  Start by getting a domain. The new owner a mail order pharmacy will need to have already decided whether to go it alone or to become an affiliate. In either event a domain is a necessity and creating a name that catches the essence of the product, mail order pharmacy, is essential for traffic. A good example is www.netmedorders.com. It is descriptive, lets the reader or searcher know what you are selling and is catchy.

• 3

  Design a website. If the new mail order pharmacy owner is good at web development he or she may choose to design their own site using their domain. This requires a lot of extra work and knowledge of what can and cannot be sold online. It will require extensive use of website design tools as many pages, photographs, explanations of each drug and their use, and numbers as well as merchant accounts will be needed. An easier way out is for those who have chosen to be an affiliate to simply download a template that has all this information in place. The new mail order pharmacy affiliate simply adjusts price.

• 4

  Find staff! Those who chose going it alone should note that while it can pay off the business will need a lot more than an affiliate site to an existing mail order pharmacy would. You need to find a doctor willing to work with the site. This can be hard because there still is an air of illegality to rubber stamping prescription, even with the most well intended doctors. The there is the need to list what drugs the doctor is able to or willing to write prescriptions by remote consultation for, and then deduct the doctor's pay, the cost of the drug, the courier service, the operators to answer any questions, dedicated phone lines and then add for personal profit, per medication. The latter part will help determine what prices need to be charged to be profitable.

• 5

  Market! No matter what you choose to do the secret to success is marketing. Marketing can be accomplished best by getting the domain name and its product on as many websites, blogs, articles and anywhere you can. If you have a web domain that is located outside the USA, even if doing business in USA, then Google AdWords is an option. At present they do not accept advertising from online or mail order pharmacies. You can make Facebook or other social networking pages, join as many forums as possible discussing the pharmacy, but beware not to mention the store itself too early or the new owner will be banned as a shill and unable to post. Start as an unassuming customer and work in the mail order pharmacy name when possible but not too often. Tell family and friends, and do all you can to get the name out there.